Port Louis -
Former Mauritian prime minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam was freed on bail on Saturday, officials said, the day after his arrest sparked angry demonstrations from supporters in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Sydney -
It’s the Holy Grail for the Earth sciences. An ancient micro continent has been found. The Seychelles are believed to be the modern remains of this continent, submerged during the breakup into modern continental land masses.

The Associated British Foods (ABF), one of the biggest British multinationals, whose brands include Silver Spoon sugar and Twinnings Tea, has been accused of avoiding to pay its million-dollar tax bill to Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world.

According to various official and unofficial estimates, Indians are accounted among the largest beneficiaries of black money deposited in tax havens off-shore. Apart from Switzerland, there are several other off-shore ill-gotten money destinations.

Despite repeated reports of cruel treatment of primates at some research facilities in the US, wild monkeys are reportedly being transported into US research facilities from abroad, raising questions about the ethical treatment of research animals.

Antananarivo -
BirdLife International announced today, in the 2010 IUCN Red List update for birds, the official extinction of the Alaotra Grebe, a bird endemic to Madagascar no seen for the last 25 years.

Nairobi -
The International Monetary Fund has announced that the African economy is recovering much quicker than a lot of other regions of the world and they believe the private sector was a key attributing factor to the recovery.

Earlier this month, the government of India purchasd $7 billion worth of gold bullion and now there have been talks that India may buy more from the International Monetary Fund. When this news report hit, gold hit another benchmark at $1,180.

Pirates have taken a hijacked Italian tugboat and two Egyptian ships with 40 captured mariners on board, close to the Las Qoray village, located on the faultline with disputed Puntland and Somaliland. The pirates fear reprisal attacks from rival gangs.